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A claimant is entitled to the protection of qualified one-way costs shifting (QOCS) even though she signed an earlier conditional fee agreement (CFA) for the same injury under the old rules, a regional costs judge has ruled.

Appeal judges have ruled that solicitors cannot recover their costs where conditional fee agreements (CFAs) fail to comply with the cancellation of contracts regulations, with a potential impact on a significant number of cases

Budgeting has “forced costs up and will continue to do so”, John Bramhall, president of the London Solicitors Litigation Association, has said. His comments came as 85% of litigators predicted that post-Jackson budgeting would increase costs.

Large numbers of barristers are struggling with costs budgeting, with some submitting budgets without even seeing the papers, Bar Council research has shown. It also found that barristers are now much more wary of taking work under CFAs.

The failure by a claimant’s solicitors to inform the other side of a replacement conditional fee agreement could be accurately described as a “slip, mistake or oversight” and not a “significant” failure under the ruling in Denton, the High Court has decided.

More than half of barristers conducting civil litigation have seen their income fall since implementation of the Jackson reforms, Bar Council research has found. Many barristers have also experienced problems with the transition from pre to post Jackson CFAs.

The profession’s regulators have failed to respond to a Legal Ombudsman report outlining its concerns about the way lawyers are operating conditional fee agreements (CFAs), the chief ombudsman has complained.